The Imagined Life
A Novel
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- $229.00
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- $229.00
Descripción editorial
A BEST BOOK OF 2025 IN THE NEW YORKER AND ESQUIRE • ONE OF NPR'S "BOOKS WE LOVE" • LONGLISTED FOR THE JOYCE CAROL OATES PRIZE AND THE ANDREW CARNEGIE MEDALS FOR EXCELLENCE IN FICTION
A taut, elegiac novel about a man trying to uncover the truth about the father who left him behind
“Porter has quietly become one of the United States’ most reliably great fiction writers.” —NPR
Steven Mills has reached a crossroads. His wife and son have left, and they may not return. Which leaves him determined to find out what happened to his own father, a brilliant, charismatic professor who disappeared in 1984 when Steve was twelve, on a wave of ignominy.
As Steve drives up the coast of California, seeking out his father’s friends, family members, and former colleagues, the novel offers us tantalizing glimpses into Steve’s childhood—his parents’ legendary pool parties, the black-and-white films on the backyard projector, secrets shared with his closest friend. Each conversation in the present reveals another layer of his father’s past, another insight into his disappearance. Yet with every revelation, his father becomes more difficult to recognize. And, with every insight, Steve must confront truths about his own life.
Rich in atmosphere, and with a stunningly sure-footed emotional compass, The Imagined Life is a probing, nostalgic novel about the impossibility of understanding one’s parents, about first loves and failures, about lost innocence, about the unbreakable bonds between a father and a son.
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
In the satisfying if muted latest from Porter (The Disappeared), a middle-aged writer sets out to discover why his father abandoned him and his mother four decades earlier. Steve has recently begun a trial separation from his wife and young son, and his quest unfolds on two tracks: by road, as he travels up the California coast to visit his disgraced English professor father's friends and relatives, and via memories, as he works through his last year with his father, beginning in summer 1983 when he was 11. He remembers his father's boisterous backyard pool parties at their home in Fullerton, Calif., and the days his father would spend in the cabana with close friend and colleague Deryck Evanson. Looking back, Steve recognizes that his mother had caught onto his father's affair with Deryck. His road trip includes a stop in Ojai to see his uncle Julian, with whom he discusses his father's failed bid for tenure shortly before his disappearance. "He was railroaded," Julian claims, defending his brother's merit and referencing an obscure controversy. Further up the road, Steve uncovers a few secrets as he tries to make sense of his own life in relation to his father's. Though there aren't many surprises, there's a comforting quality to Steve's insights about fathers and sons. This therapeutic novel is worth a look.
